12 Guitar Practicing Tips From The Musician 1916

By now, you know that some of the best advice in learning has been passed down from the past, including these practicing tips. It is amazing that science if finally catching up to the discoveries of practicing from 100 and 200 years ago. And with that, some advice doesn’t ever change.

Today Positive. Yesterday Negative.

Though I am not usually a fan of the negative form of direction, this list caught my eye as I went through The Musician Vol. 21, No. 3 from March of 1916. The generation at the time of this particular magazine emphasized the negative versions of instruction rather than the positive as we do now. Either way, the list remains relevant today more than ever considering all the distractions available to us.

A Dozen Practicing Don’ts (or 12 Practicing Tips)

1. Don’t fritter—practice.
2. Don’t watch the clock—watch your music (here’s my stand choice).
3. Don’t let a day pass without a practice period.
4. Don’t do tomorrow’s practice today. A daily one-hour period is much better than three hours every third day.
5. Don’t forget that regular practice periods, if possible at the same time every day—preferably in the morning—count for most.
6. Don’t be careless about the rhythm in any composition; the greatest weakness a musician may have is a lack of rhythmic sense.
7. Don’t neglect the metronome (here’s my choice). Cultivate the ability to “stay with it.”
8. Don’t practice anything from start to finish. Divide it into four or eight-measure sections and play each section repeatedly before going on to the next.
9. Don’t fail to use the music dictionary (I use this one). Always look up the descriptive words in every composition and try to live up to their meaning.
10. Don’t cultivate a preference for compositions written in flats rather than those written in sharps.
11. Don’t fail to analyze all difficult measures and phrases in your music. Rhythm, ornamental, etc., sometimes require special attention.
12. Don’t practice so strenuously that the muscles of your hands and fingers become strained or cramped.

From The Musician, Vol. 21, No. 3 by Henry Charles Gerwig

Check out some of our other articles:

• 3 Things I Am Learning From Beginner Guitar Scales in Open Position
• The Basics of Music Theory – Part 1 (The Chromatic Scale)
• New Reference Video: Dialogue by Marc Bélanger
• Positives And Pitfalls Of Études

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Chadwick Becks

I have two degrees in guitar performance and was privileged to study under Aaron Shearer, Tom Kikta, David Skantar, Ken Karsh, Tim Bedner, and currently Christopher Berg. Outside my editorial work on this blog, I teach full-time across many genres including classical, jazz, blues, rock, funk, and metal.